How You Can Use Video

By
Carlinea Williamson

Video is good for your SEO. Video is good for traffic. Video is great for sharing. We’ve all heard these statements. But how can you use video to help drive specific business outcomes? Here’s our handy guide to thinking about how videos can be a hard working part of your marketing toolkit.

Why make a video?

People connect with stories, and with the people telling those stories, particularly when they are told with imagery. A video is a really effective way to present your business, your brand and make a connection with your audience quickly.

Videos can communicate in lots of different ways with consumers. If winning new traffic to your site is the goal, then a video that answers a question or explains a common problem will work really well. Similarly, you can use video on social channel to attract new traffic with shorter, snappier product or brand stories.

If your goal is to build trust with your consumer once they are already on your site or educate them about your business, then store profile pieces and customer testimonials are a great way to achieve this.

Video can also be a great way to offer customer support post purchase. If your customer service team are always getting the same installation or set up questions, then a video might be an alternative way to communicate the process as well as written instructions.

Where can you use it?

So you see how a video could be helpful to your business, but you’re wondering how people will find it. Depending on the type of video you’ve decided to make, there are multiple applications:

Answering a Question or Explaining a Common Problem

If you have an insight into a commonly asked question or a problem that lots of people experience and would like solved or explained, then you may have just found the idea for a great video. These types of videos get traffic from people searching for a video that best answers their question. They can be a great way to win traffic to your site, and expose your brand to thousands of new consumers.

Successful videos are very clear, succinct and answer the question clearly. These type of videos are best uploaded to YouTube with clear description of the content covered, this will help them to be discovered.

If your video covers a common customer service issue it makes sense to create a link to on your contact us page, regularly share it on your social channels as well as upload it to YouTube with really clear titles and descriptions so that it can be readily discovered.

Store Profile Videos & Testimonials

Creating a 90 to 120 second piece on your business and what sets you a part is an awesome marketing tool to have. These act as an ideal introduction, so it makes sense to use them in places where people are looking for information on your business:

As a part of your email footer

On your About Us page on your website

On your House of Home Store Page

On your Linked In profile

Include it as an attachment with emailed quotes

If you have a client video testimonial piece made, they work just as well as a store profile piece in all of the same applications. One of your happy customers telling the world what they loved about dealing with your business is definitely as powerful, if not more so, than you telling the camera what your business does well. Testimonials are a great way to build trust with new customers.

Videos for Social Channels

The key to success with a great social video is to keep it short (under 29 seconds) & engaging. You need to be very clear what the purpose of the video is, so spend some time planning & storyboarding to make sure you get the key elements across.

Making a great video for your brand or store

1) Start by choosing your topic - You know your business best so think about what videos make sense for you:

Do you need a video that explains what you do and why it’s different? Here’s one that we had made to explain our business . We send it to potential clients and have it loaded on our About Us page.

If one of your goals for your business is to build a stronger connection with your customers, have a look at how Acqua Bathrooms uses video to provide their online customers with a similar experience to those coming instore.

A product demonstration video to show how easy your product is to use, or exactly what makes it better or different than your competitors. Air Sack used a video showing customer’s positive response to sitting in their product to get across how special an Air Sack is from other furniture on the market.

2) Then think about where you are going to use your video – is it predominantly for on your site, to win traffic on YouTube or as a social promotional tool?

Your answer will change what the requirements of your video are:

YouTube and Facebook are quite different in terms of ideal length.

Videos on social are often played with the sound down or off – does your video make sense without audio?

Think about how your video will appear on mobile. Consumption of all content via mobile grows strongly each year, and video consumption on mobile is experiencing particularly strong growth, increasing at 100% per year. So what makes a video work better on mobile?

Often shorter, snappier content as video viewed on mobile is often watched on the run.

Think about the size of the footage, and optimize the shot to make sure all the details are clear.

Think about how video can help you spread the story of your business and what sets it apart. If you’d like to talk through where video fits most effectively in your marketing toolkit, please call any of the House of Home team, 03 9257 3240.